by Alice Ward
I closed my eyes as the squeal of tires and the rumble of a car engine came through the line. Trey’s scream was the last thing I heard before the line went dead.
I sat frozen, still holding the phone and debating whether or not to play the message again. Eventually, I decided one time was enough. All it took was one second of hearing Trey’s voice. With it, all the memories came back. All the reminders.
Pocketing the phone, I gazed up at the gray, polluted sky. I needed to do things right this time.
For the life of me, I didn’t know if doing the right thing meant I stayed or walked away.
If I was part of Jagger’s life or if I left him alone.
Maybe the kid would be better off without me.
But would I be better off without him?
Without her?
No.
That was the only thing that was clear.
In the space of the minutes I spent thinking about this huge change in my life, I’d come to one conclusion. I needed to try.
Would I fuck up? Probably.
And if I did, I’d just have to try harder.
Harder than I’d ever tried for anything in my life.
As I looked up at the hazy heavens, the clouds parted and the moon gazed down at me, almost as if it was giving me its approval.
It was settled then.
If Skye allowed me to be part of their lives, I would worship Jagger. I would be the dad every kid needed. Maybe someday Skye and I could even be friends… or at least friendly. But even though I would make sure to do everything right, I couldn’t get it twisted. Stepping up and being a good dad wouldn’t mean I’d ever be able to atone for my past sins.
I was a jerk, but I wasn’t completely stupid. The biggest act of kindness in the world couldn’t make up for the pain I’d caused. I’d accepted that long, long ago.
CHAPTER SIX
Skye
Present Day…
I dabbed an extra amount of concealer under my eyes, hoping it would do the trick. One look in the mirror told me it didn’t stand a chance. I still looked like the walking dead.
After Jake left the bar, I felt so sick to my stomach I thought I would vomit. Somehow, I held the bile down and made it home. There, things got worse. I stayed up all night, wondering just what Jake’s reentry into my life meant. Was Jagger supposed to know him? Could that really be the case, considering that Jake stormed off just minutes after I told him the truth?
Was this all some cruel experience concocted by a higher force? Payback for past sins? I desperately wanted to believe everything happened for a reason — a good reason — but some days it could be hard to stick with that idea. I could tell Jake was in pain just by looking at him. The last six years hadn’t been kind to either one of us. But why? Was there something we had to learn from it all?
My phone buzzed, making me jump. Apparently, fatigue caused me to be super on edge. I snatched the phone from the top of my wardrobe. The message was on Facebook… from Jake.
My heart beating in my throat, I hastily pulled the note up.
I’m sorry about last night. Can we talk?
The message ended with his number and address. Before I let fear get the best of me, I punched in his number, willing my hands to stop their shaking.
“Hello?” came that warm and deep voice.
“It’s Skye,” I blurted, “I’m sorry about last night too. I was… it was just, you know...”
“It’s fine. Can you meet?”
My heart began to hammer. “Now?”
“Is now good?”
I glanced at the clock. Cadence and Jagger had already left for the farmer’s market and I had a catering gig in the East Village to be at in an hour. With a break from school, I’d taken to working more in order to save up money. That meant waiting tables four nights a week at a popular barbecue spot and picking up catering jobs whenever they were available.
Calling out an hour before work sure wouldn’t score me brownie points with the company’s manager, but if anything was an emergency, surely this was. Jake and I needed to talk, and I couldn’t wait another minute to do so. Every cell in my body would surely burst if I didn’t get this over with soon.
“Yes. I can do that.”
“Great.” He seemed relieved. “I’ll text you my address.”
“Terrific. I’ll be there soon.”
I called the manager up and told her I couldn’t make it in, stating that there was a family emergency. It wasn’t a lie. My son’s long-lost father had just shown up out of the blue. I’d never been faced with a more pressing issue in my life. Plus, if I had gone into work in my current state, I probably would have dumped a tray of drinks on someone’s head.
The subway ride to Manhattan was even worse than the walk I’d taken the day before. Jake had real reason to be mad at me, just like I did with him. I didn’t know what kind of maelstrom I was walking into.
Jake’s building was just as nice as I’d imagined it to be. Set on Fifth Avenue, it had a direct view of Central Park. Not only was there a doorman and a front desk receptionist, an elevator operator waited to whisk me upstairs. My heart hammered as the door opened onto Jake’s floor, and I stepped out into the carpeted hallway.
The place was immaculate, more like a five-star hotel than an apartment building. Tracking the numbers on the doors, I made my way to the end of the hall and gave Jake’s a knock.
The door opened after just a couple seconds, and there he stood, staring down at me, looking just as on edge as I felt. His pale face and tired eyes told me he’d also had a hard night, and the wicked part of myself felt happy about that. Good. At least I wasn’t the only one suffering.
I immediately felt bad for thinking that way.
God, I was a total mess.
“Hey,” he murmured softly, as if afraid speaking too loudly would scare me away. Maybe he was right. Even that soft word nearly made me jump.
“Hi.”
“Come on in.”
I silently followed him through his foyer and into a well-lit living room. On the other side of the floor-length windows, Central Park’s lush canopy danced in the wind. If Jake didn’t have the absolute best apartment in the place, he had one of them. Despite the luxury, the room was sadly bare. There was no art. No books. No sign that someone was building a life within the lavish walls.
“Have a seat.” Jake gestured at the long, black couch. “Would you like a drink? I just made coffee.”
“Sure.” Immensely uncomfortable, I eased down onto a cushion and folded my hands on top of my lap. While Jake disappeared into the kitchen, I took the opportunity to crane my neck and peek down the hallway. Just like the living room and foyer, it was also barren. It was like the Jake I once knew had never so much as stepped foot into this apartment. The Jake Truman I grew up with loved his things. Loved them to a fault, in my opinion. With him, it had always been about obtaining the next toy. The bigger and flashier, the better.
Jake’s footsteps announced his arrival, and I quickly snapped my gaze to my knees.
“Here you go.”
He set a cup of coffee on the table in front of me and took a seat two cushions away. My skin danced with electricity. Even after everything we’d been through, Jake’s presence was still magnetic. I came alive when he was close to me. It was simultaneously amazing and awful.
Jake rested his elbows on his hands and locked his fingertips. With his eyebrows pushed sharply together, he looked at me. “I’m sorry about just leaving like that.”
You should be, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t. My anger was quickly dying. In its place was pity.
“It’s understandable,” I whispered through a dry throat.
“I knew all day that Jagger was… was likely my son… but hearing it straight from you.” His eyes searched my face, like the words he was seeking lived inside me. “It just blew me away.”
I pressed my lips together and blinked my eyes to stop the tears. “If you’d gotten in touch… just onc
e… I would have told you. I wasn’t trying to keep him a secret from you.”
Jake sighed heavily and looked up at the ceiling. “I know. Look, Skye, I want to be in his life if you’ll allow it. Despite all of the shitty things that have happened, he’s the most important thing now.”
“Right,” I agreed. “He is the most important thing in my life.”
“Does he know about me?”
I thought of all the questions Jagg was starting to have about his father and how I’d been able to sidestep them up to now. I’d been dreading the day when my little boy insisted on answers. I didn’t know what I was going to tell him. I didn’t want to lie and tell him his father was dead, but in a way, it wouldn’t have been a lie. The Jake Truman I knew no longer existed.
“No. He knows nothing.”
Jake bit his bottom lip and winced, and for some reason, just seeing him hurting over the news annoyed me. I didn’t owe him anything. It had been my right to tell Jagger only what I decided to.
“It would have hurt him,” I said, the defensive barrier firmly back in place. “A father who just left him before he was even born? He would have assumed, as any kid would, that you left because you didn’t want him. Doesn’t that sound like a shitty situation to you?”
“Yeah.” He nodded at the floor. “It does.”
I crossed my arms and glared at him. “I did what I needed to do.”
Those warm chocolate eyes gazed at me, and I had to look away. “I know. And I’m sorry you had to do it all on your own.”
I wanted to huff. To stomp my feet and yell at him. I was giving Jake shit and all he was doing was rolling over and taking it. This reunion was too easy. There needed to be some crying and screaming. There needed to be catharsis. A thousand times, I’d imagined just what I would say to Jake if I ever saw him again, and now here he was, just agreeing with everything coming out of my mouth.
But seeing him so sad like this also pulled at my heart strings. This was Jake Truman. The boy I’d loved for so long. The boy I’d made a serious mistake with. A mistake we’d both paid a heavy price for. Sympathy and something else — longing? — caused me to soften my voice.
“I could have gotten in touch with you, I guess. I knew you were at that base in California. I could have written a letter, but I figured even if I did that you might not respond. And I didn’t want you to feel trapped. And I…”
I was rambling and felt my bottom lip begin to shake. I bit down on it to keep it in check.
Jake looked at me, his eyes so sad it almost broke my heart. “If I’d known about Jagger I would have answered. But for anything else…” he pursed his lips tightly together, “I wouldn’t have.”
And with those words, another piece of my heart broke off.
Apparently, it didn’t matter how much pain a person had been through before. If there was an opportunity to suffer more, the universe would make it happen. The hurt always felt just as deep as the first time.
What I always suspected was true. Jake didn’t want me.
I pressed my hands together, watching the skin turn white from the pressure. “You didn’t care for me,” I whispered, needing the truth to be said out loud.
Jake’s sharp inhale filled the room. “Jesus, Skye. You know it’s not that.”
I looked up at him, my fury rearing its head again. “Oh, really? And how can I know it’s not that? You told me to forget about you, Jake. You made it pretty clear that you wanted nothing to do with me ever again. That doesn’t sound like an act of love to me. Or even like. Or friendship.” My voice was cracking, but I went on. Nothing would stop me. “We were best friends. I needed you… more then than I ever had.”
Jake watched me, but his eyes were now like steel. “I would have only hurt you.”
“That’s your story?” I laughed but stopped as the edge of hysteria crept into it. “Is that what you keep telling yourself? But that doesn’t mean it’s true.”
“It’s true.”
I threw up my hands. “God, you’re hopeless.”
“I know.”
We sat there in silence, the wall between us unbreachable. Steam rose from the surface of my coffee, the wisps disappearing, much like my hope. I felt frozen by pain and desperation. I wanted so badly to make things right, but I didn’t even know what that meant anymore. For a few years, I figured it meant having Jake back. And then I figured it meant never seeing him again. Now, I didn’t know.
I could feel Jake’s eyes studying me. Slowly, I turned to face him. “What?”
“I just… I think I see some of the old Skye in there.”
I scoffed. “I highly doubt it. You’re not the only one who has changed a lot.”
His eyes crinkled. “Yeah, I’m sure that’s true.”
I cleared my throat and composed myself. Being so close to Jake still brought on an onslaught of emotions. It was hard keeping my head straight. “You’ve changed. I can tell.”
His expression was flat. “You have no idea how much.”
There were so many questions that remark brought up for me, but I was afraid of delving in that direction. So I brought his attention to something else and gestured at the room around us. “Look at this place. There’s nothing here. This doesn’t look like the dream bachelor pad the old Jake used to talk about.”
He jerked his face away, staring out one of the floor to ceiling windows. When I followed his gaze, I could see the ghost of his reflection. It was a metaphor if I’d ever seen one. What he said next confirmed it.
“The old Jake is dead.”
I swallowed the ball of fire in my throat. “Who is the new Jake?”
His jaw ticked and he pressed his fingertips together. “Fuck if I know.”
I sighed and rubbed my tired eyes. “I’m not asking for me. I’m asking for Jagger.”
Lie! a voice in my head shrieked. Such a lie!
“I’ll be good for him,” Jake promised, running all ten fingers through his hair, rumpling it even further. “All of this shit… not just stuff between you and me, but my own personal stuff as well. I won’t bring it to our relationship. I won’t hurt him.” He ducked his head and looked straight into my eyes. “Or you.”
As the seconds passed and he held my gaze, I found myself believing him more and more. A wave of warmth washed over me. Somehow, I knew Jake was making a promise he would keep. Or would at least try to. I had to give him that chance.
“All right,” I agreed and stretched out my hand as if we had just concluded a business deal. “If that’s your promise.”
That playful smile tugged at the right side of his mouth as his palm connected with mine. The electricity between us burst to life, and I felt the same tug toward him that I always had. My face burned with the weight of emotion, my throat clogging with everything still unsaid.
His eyes grew wet too, and his hand turned until our fingers threaded together. This. I remembered how it felt to touch him. To be near him. To have his eyes soften as he looked at me, as he was looking at me now.
I’d missed it. Missed him. Missed this.
“If I break my promise, you can send the mafia after me,” he joked and the moment was broken.
A short laugh burst from my chest at the old joke, but I followed his lead. “You think I know the mafia?”
“Why would I not think you know the mafia?”
Jake grinned, which made me do the same. “You’re right,” I agreed and pulled my hand away. “Maybe I do. After all, everyone could use a swim in the river in concrete shoes every once in a while. It’s good for building character.”
Jake chuckled. “That’s the girl I’ve been thinking about.”
The sweetness in his voice stole my breath away, and the electricity between us began to build again. “What do you mean?”
His smile faded but the light in his eyes didn’t dim at all. “I’m talking about your fiery side. That’s what I meant when I mentioned the old Skye. She’s the girl who lived for a thrill.”
“And you were the boy who lived for danger,” I reminded him.
Those beautiful eyes clouded again. “Yeah, that didn’t work out too well for me.”
We fell into another heavy silence, all the things we couldn’t bring ourselves to say pressing in around us.
“I thought of you,” he murmured. He wouldn’t meet my eyes, and I was glad for it. His confession had my heart rate picking up and my breathing becoming labored. “Through all the hard times, I thought of you, Skye. Your face kept me going… and haunted me. Every time I came close to fucking anything up, I thought about you. I thought of how disappointed you must have been in me.”
My eyes stung. “There,” the word came out strangled, “you’re doing it again. You’re putting words in my mouth. I never said I was disappointed in you, Jake.”
His eyes connected with mine, the misery living in them so incredibly heartbreaking to witness. “You should have been.”
“I wasn’t.” I dabbed away a tear. “What do you mean, thinking of me kept you going?”
His chest rose with a deep inhale, and he slid closer to me, reaching up to wipe a second tear away. “There were some days when it seemed there wasn’t anything good in my life. During those times, I thought of you, and I became happy. It was kind of cheating, and I knew it. I figured I didn’t really have any right to be thinking of you. Hell, I thought I’d probably never see you again, so having you on my mind should have only made me sad… but it didn’t. It made me stronger and reminded me to keep myself in check.”
I slowly shook my head, unable to believe everything coming from his mouth. “You’re too hard on yourself.”
Not a muscle moved in his face. He didn’t believe me at all. I wanted to convince him he was worthwhile, but the other side of me wondered what the point would be. Jake had abandoned me. It sounded like he had also abandoned himself. It would take more than words to soothe the pain so clearly festering inside him.
Maybe allowing our son to build a relationship was the most I could do at the moment. Beyond that, time and destiny would have to play itself out.